Rent Restriction We should attach more importance to the Report
of the Committee which was given the task of inquiring into the working of the Rent Restriction Acts if the present Government had not the ungrateful habit of flouting the advice for which it asks. These Acts, annually renewed relics of the War, have appeared to successive Govern- ments like nettles too threatening to grasp ; and we are not surprised at that. The present Government, however, appointed last October a Parliamentary Committee to inquire and to recommend modifications or amendments. Will they find either the time or the courage to take action ? The recommendations are mild, and agricultural cottagei were excluded from the terms of reference. They propose that the Acts should no longer apply to houses the rent or rateable value of which exceeds £45 in London, £35 in the rest of England and Wales, For houses assessed at less than those figures they do not suggest any date for general decontrol, but would alter the conditions by which some would become decontrolled automatically, as by a change of tenancy. The continuance of the Acts has been the chief obstacle that prevents decent owners of small house property from helping to solVe the slum problem ; and by encouraging the immobility of labour they have contributed to unemploy- ment. The- longer they last the more hardship their end will cause.
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